But first impressions are not always final. Maxwell found the hotel full of people, mostly women. It was a fashionable place, and the women were fair to look upon, but there were not men enough to go round. There were two or three dowagers who knew Maxwell and, seek to avoid it as he might, he was soon generally introduced and his eligibility made widely known. Then came monotonous attention and, for his own peace, the man, who hadn't come after women, was driven to daily exile either to his room or to the lake or hills. The elder ladies with daughters hunted him as hounds might hunt a rabbit. He resolved promptly upon escape and, within a week, an afternoon found him engaged in packing for that purpose. His laundry had just come in and among the articles he picked up first were a lot of blazing silken handkerchiefs. Colored silk handkerchiefs were a fad of his in summer. He tossed them idly into his valise when the color of one of them attracted his attention. "I never owned a handkerchief like that," he muttered. He raised the article to examine it more closely, and to his amazement it unfolded and lengthened out. It was not a handkerchief at all. It was a lady's stocking--a brilliant purple stocking! Maxwell wondered. "Washing's been mixed," he said, and then devoted closer and more earnest attention to his prize. It was a charming affair, small of foot but not too small otherwise, and possessed, somehow, an especial symmetry, even in its present state. "It's number eight--number three shoe," thought Maxwell, "and it's the prettiest stocking I ever saw." His comment was fully justified. The stocking was a dream in its department of lingerie. The purple was relieved, from the ankle upward a little way, by a clocking of snow-white sprays of lilies-of-the-valley, and the purple itself was of such a hue as to send one dreaming of the glories of the ancients. It was a wonderful stocking, a fascinating stocking. It lured like a will-o'-the wisp. Maxwell abandoned his packing and sat stroking and admiring the hypnotizing object. He became vastly interested. "I wonder whom it belongs to?" he mused. Then--there's no explaining it with authority, and discreetly--a sudden fancy seized upon him. "I'll not leave to-night!" he said, "I'll find the owner of that stocking! It will give me something to do and add a little zest to things. Might as well be stocking-hunting as anything else. By Jove, what a neat little foot she must have!"